Mayer Spivack (1936 - 2011) is @MayerSpivack on Twitter. He was a consultant and advisor on organizational behavior, innovation, and learning, based near Boston, Massachusetts. He was also an artist working in a variety of media. All writing and artworks presented here are the original work and are the copyrighted property of Mayer Spivack. Nothing on this weblog is aggregated from other sources. Reasonable use involving copying with attribution, and limited sharing not for profit, are allowed. Your comments are invited. This blog is now maintained by his son, Nova Spivack. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your interest.

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February 12, 2010

A Quantum-Entangled One-Time-Pad For Continuous Transmission.

Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University in Japan has proposed an energy and information teleportation system, (Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1002.0200 Energy-Entanglement Relation for Quantum Energy Teleportation). His proposal, as I understand it, would be limited to a single instantiation event taking place in a single simultaneous pair of measurements, one in a laboratory, the other somewhere within the grand fluctuating universe.

To be useful beyond the laboratory we would need a constant seamless flow of such events. But how? Let us suppose that a locally observed smidgen, one part of a singlet (herein named Constance), is one part of a shared identity within a pair of entangled Siamese-twin-sister particles.

Whimsy is Constance’s twin sister who is traveling incognito. Whimsy’s Location is to be specified by information (her code) inserted by nanohypodermic into the vibrating 'bodies' of both sisters at their birth in a Petri dish. That code will come to determine the whereabouts and life-story of Whimsy as she roams the world at the speed of light. Any leaks of information about the secret locations of sister Whimsy would itself constitute quite a lot of valuable information and be in violation of some law or other. But these sisters are scofflaws, just the kinds of pioneers we need to explore for us. But for them to perform any work (as spies perhaps?) they will each have to carry some additional coded information perhaps written upside down in invisible ink on their foreheads. For this information to 'work' the sisters must never be aware of the writing on their heads.

That encoded information is a determinant that defines timing and locational coordinates within a fluctuating indeterminate future. This code may alter some feature of a tiny thread in the fundamental fabric of the universe. (It might be more accurate to suggest that this determinant information constitutes and qualifies the whole of Whimsy's oh-too-brief existence. Description, her story, is her existential truth. Information appears to equal reality. Whimsy is no wimp, she is petite, but she is also a brave time-traveler who never knows quite where she is, and could care less.

This information, having been encoded onto Constance’s forehead, must instantly permit the remote extraction of that same information (or energy, or ‘stuff’) from within the entangled ‘mind’ of poor remote Whimsy, who in her loneliness, has impulsively fled for the billionth time from an English train, and is now strolling forlornly in an "octopuses' garden 'neath the sea". It is nonetheless vital that she must be found instantly. The only clue, the only note we have that might lead us to her whereabouts is written on Constance’s forehead. (Did we make a Post-It-Note copy of the info? Did we stick it on the cryogenic icebox?)

Now, us lab apes, at a scale beyond their imagining, on the basis of that note, must figure out approximately where in the grand tapestry the picture of little Whimsy's forehead is woven. Once we call out both their names, the necessary space/place/time coordinates deep in the hearts of each sister will make them so happy that they will wriggle under our magnifying glass, Constance will heat up until she glows, right here on our lab table, and our simultaneous n-dimensional telescope view of Whimsy somewhere over there, indicates her glowing like a firefly, see? just–right– there! No, she moved. Now, is she is up there in that tree?

The problem, as I see it, is that once we have brought Constance and Whimsy back together again for an instant, we immediately lose contact with Whimsy along with their paired function as an information channel. We can no longer trick Constance into telling Whimsy any secrets. In order to create a continuous channel that will be useful in the next moment and moments beyond, we must not only encode Constance with some secret information to be communicated via her one time only, but we must also provide some way for that information to be carried by both sisters as they become entangled and are split apart. The point here that is to be pulled from the humor and metaphor is that: This code must also enclose another code that identifies the location and time of the next transmission. Somehow we must find a way to piggy-back codes.

In function, this is similar in practice to the old-time-spy’s use of the famed ‘one-time-pad’. This easy-to- propose but hard to invent encoding method might allow the content of each pairing to link forward to the next in a daisy-chain.... and so on.

A communication system of entanglement servers (infotanglers?) might provide a fast and unlimited bandwidth-free information pipe, one that would be dependent upon indeterminate and constantly changing directories for place and time but would nevertheless work. Whimsy will turn up instantly and always, wherever Constance requires demands, and she will tell all to anyone who knows the code.

NOTE: Why have I written this post in what I hope is humorous metaphor?

Sometimes re-contextualizing and making light of a complex subject frees the mind from thinking only linearly, and allows our associative and creative abilities to come up with novel perspectives and innovations. Have fun at my expense!

Comments

A Quantum-Entangled One-Time-Pad For Continuous Transmission.

Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University in Japan has proposed an energy and information teleportation system, (Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1002.0200 Energy-Entanglement Relation for Quantum Energy Teleportation). His proposal, as I understand it, would be limited to a single instantiation event taking place in a single simultaneous pair of measurements, one in a laboratory, the other somewhere within the grand fluctuating universe.

To be useful beyond the laboratory we would need a constant seamless flow of such events. But how? Let us suppose that a locally observed smidgen, one part of a singlet (herein named Constance), is one part of a shared identity within a pair of entangled Siamese-twin-sister particles.

Blogroll of honor + Websites

The Alex Foundation- Home pageIrene Pepperberg studies cognitive process, teaching and learning in birds. She is problably the most recognized researcher on avian cognition in the world. Alex, her now famous long-time research subject and 'collaborator' recently died at half his life expectancy. Now Wart and Griffin are her collaborators. They are saying and doing things we used to believe that only small children, great apes, and dolphins could do. Her brilliant work deserves better funding.

Minding the PlanetNova is a cognitive scientist and high-tech entrepreneur working on technologies that overcome our information overload. He has founded companies and is now developing interactive internet software, TWINE, that we all need. His thinking covers a great range. He is my Son.